Classifying Household Water Use Events into Indoor and Outdoor Use: Improving the Benefits of Basic Smart Meter Data Sets

Abstract Distinguishing between indoor use and outdoor use is becoming increasingly important, especially in water-scarce regions, since outdoor use is typically targeted during water restrictions. Household water use is typically measured at a single water meter, and the resolution of the metered data is typically too coarse to employ on commercially available disaggregation software, such as flow trace analysis. This study is the first to classify end-use events from a rudimentary data set, into indoor use or outdoor use. This case study was conducted in Johannesburg, South Africa, and quantified the volume of water used indoors and outdoors at 63 residential properties over 217 days. A recently developed model for classifying water use events as either indoor or outdoor, based on rudimentary water meter data, was employed in this study. A total of 212,060 single end-use events were classified as being either indoor or outdoor. The indoor and outdoor consumptions were compared with survey results. It was found that 30% of all events were outdoor, based on the total volume.

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Investigating wastewater flow from a gated community to disaggregate indoor and outdoor water use

Journal of Water Sanitation and Hygiene for Development ◽

10.2166/washdev.2018.125 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 238-245 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

J. L. Du Plessis ◽

B. Faasen ◽

H. E. Jacobs ◽

A. J. Knox ◽

C. Loubser

Keyword(s):

Water Use ◽

Demand Management ◽

Controlled Study ◽

Gated Community ◽

Residential Water Use ◽

Household Water ◽

Outdoor Water Use ◽

Annual Water ◽

End Use ◽

Indoor And Outdoor

Abstract Disaggregating residential water use into components for indoor and outdoor use is useful in view of water services planning and demand management campaigns, where outdoor use is often the target of water restrictions. Previous research has shown that individual end-use events can be identified based on analysis of the flow pattern at the water meter, but such studies are relatively complex and expensive. A basic method to disaggregate the indoor–outdoor water use would be useful. In addressing this problem, a technique was employed in this study to disaggregate indoor–outdoor water use based on knowledge of the wastewater flow, with assumptions that link indoor use to wastewater flow. A controlled study site in a gated community, with small bore sewers, was selected to allow certain assumptions to be validated. The results provide insight into the monthly indoor and outdoor water use of homes in the study area, and show how wastewater flow could be used to assess outdoor use. Outdoor use was found to represent up to 66% of the total household water use in January, accounting for ∼58% of the total annual water use in the study area 2016.

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HOUSEHOLD WATER BALANCE AND ASSESSMENT OF WATER VOLUME FOR IRRIGATION IN AGRO LANDSCAPES OF THE KYZYLSU-YUZHNAYA BASIN

Prirodoobustrojstvo ◽

10.26897/1997-6011-2020-5-102-109 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 102-109

Author(s):

D.KH. DOMULLODZHANOV ◽

◽

R. RAHMATILLOEV

Keyword(s):

Water Balance ◽

River Basin ◽

Water Use ◽

Storage Systems ◽

Low Cost ◽

Field Studies ◽

Water Volume ◽

Land Productivity ◽

Household Water ◽

And Storage

The article presents the results of the field studies and observations that carried out on the territory of the hilly, low-mountain and foothill agro landscapes of the Kyzylsu-yuzhnaya (Kyzylsu-Southern) River Basin of Tajikistan. Taking into account the high-altitude location of households and the amount of precipitation in the river basin, the annual volumes of water accumulated with the use of low-cost systems of collection and storage of precipitation have been clarified. The amount of water accumulated in the precipitation collection and storage systems has been established, the volume of water used for communal and domestic needs,the watering of livestock and the amount of water that can be used to irrigate crops in the have been determined. Possible areas of irrigation of household plots depending on the different availability of precipitation have been determined. It has been established that in wet years (with precipitation of about 10%) the amount of water collected using drip irrigation will be sufficient for irrigation of 0.13 hectares, and in dry years (with 90% of precipitation) it will be possible to irrigate only 0.03 ha of the household plot. On the basis of the basin, the total area of irrigation in wet years can be 4497 ha, and in dry years only 1087 ha. Taking into account the forecasts of population growth by 2030 and an increase in the number of households, the total area of irrigation of farmlands in wet years may reach 5703 hectares,and in dry years – 1379 hectares. Growing crops on household plots under irrigation contributes to a significant increase in land productivity and increases the efficiency of water use of the Kyzylsu-yuzhnaya basin.

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The role of nature contact and connectedness to nature as determinants of household water use: A case study from Spain

Water and Environment Journal ◽

10.1111/wej.12765 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Nazaret Ibáñez‐Rueda ◽

Jorge Guardiola ◽

Francisco González‐Gómez

Keyword(s):

Water Use ◽

Connectedness To Nature ◽

Household Water ◽

Nature Contact

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AI and privacy concerns: a smart meter case study

Journal of Information Communication and Ethics in Society ◽

10.1108/jices-04-2021-0042 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Jillian Carmody ◽

Samir Shringarpure ◽

Gerhard Van de Venter

Keyword(s):

Private Information ◽

Personal Information ◽

Consumer Information ◽

Data Sets ◽

Smart Meter ◽

Smart Meters ◽

Content Type ◽

Privacy Concerns ◽

Privacy Legislation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate privacy concerns arising from the rapidly increasing advancements and use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology and the challenges of existing privacy regimes to ensure the on-going protection of an individual’s sensitive private information. The authors illustrate this through a case study of energy smart meters and suggest a novel combination of four solutions to strengthen privacy protection. Design/methodology/approach The authors illustrate how, through smart meter obtained energy data, home energy providers can use AI to reveal private consumer information such as households’ electrical appliances, their time and frequency of usage, including number and model of appliance. The authors show how this data can further be combined with other data to infer sensitive personal information such as lifestyle and household income due to advances in AI technologies. Findings The authors highlight data protection and privacy concerns which are not immediately obvious to consumers due to the capabilities of advanced AI technology and its ability to extract sensitive personal information when applied to large overlapping granular data sets. Social implications The authors question the adequacy of existing privacy legislation to protect sensitive inferred consumer data from AI-driven technology. To address this, the authors suggest alternative solutions. Originality/value The original value of this paper is that it illustrates new privacy issues brought about by advances in AI, failings in current privacy legislation and implementation and opens the dialog between stakeholders to protect vulnerable consumers.

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How managers can reduce household water use through communication: A field experiment

10.31234/osf.io/j5v6y ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Heather Hodges ◽

Colin Kuehl ◽

Sarah E. Anderson ◽

Phillip John Ehret ◽

Cameron Brick

Keyword(s):

Field Experiment ◽

Water Use ◽

Cost Effective ◽

High Water ◽

Single Family ◽

Residential Water Use ◽

Household Water ◽

Average Water ◽

Water District ◽

Residential Water

As populations increase and droughts intensify, water providers are using tools such as persuasive messaging to decrease residential water use. However, district-led messaging campaigns are rarely informed by psychological science, evaluated for effectiveness, or strategically disseminated. In collaboration with a water district, we report a field experiment among single-family households using persuasive messaging based on the information-motivation-behavioral skills model (IMB). We randomly assigned 10,000 households to receive different mailings and measured household water use. All messaging reduced water consumption relative to the control. On average, water use dropped 0.68 HCF (509 gallons) per household in the first month. Had all 10,000 single-family, occupied, non-agricultural residences been mailed the IMB messaging, more than 5 million gallons would have been saved in the first month. The effects declined but persisted for approximately three months and were three to six times greater in households with high water use (75th-90th percentiles) relative to average water use. These findings suggest that combining message elements from the IMB model can reduce residential water use and that targeting high-use households is particularly cost-effective.

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